During the class, the lights went out, the building started to shake, and everyone ran from the classroom. Burr went to the window to see what was happening. "I looked out the window (at the towers) and saw people waving and then they started falling," he said. "I started running in the halls, trying to find my girlfriend or someone I knew."
Everyone was confused and scared, Burr said. At one point a helicopter flew over the building and the crowds in the halls thought it was heading for the school. "People didn't know it was a terrorist attack. People didn't know what was going on at all."
Burr found his girlfriend, and the two ran out of the school just as the towers were falling. "When we turned, the building was already down and coming up fast behind us," he said. "I remember thinking New York was under attack."
Burr said that for six months he had nightmares about a plane crashing into his apartment building.
No one from Stuyvesant was hurt, and the school received tons of media attention, appearing repeatedly in the national news. Burr said the media frenzy became ridiculous. "People were talking about us being heroes, but it just made me nauseous. We were just put in that situation and did what anyone would do in that situation."
After a month of cleanup, during which Burr attended school in Brooklyn, Stuyvesant opened its doors again, although things weren't entirely the same.
But to Burr, the recovery of New York City felt swift, making it seem sometimes as though nothing had happened. "It's hard to digest the fact it actually happened. I think there's some sense of denial in the city," he said. "It will never be the same, but people moved on quicker than they thought they would."
Burr said he plans to spend this Sept. 11 going to an art exhibit that showcases pictures of New York City aside from the twin towers. "It's not going to be a depressing day. Just a day of remembrance."
Chapel Hill
For Kristin Dossary, the events of Sept. 11 revived fears and worries she has carried with her since the Gulf War.
Ever since that war, Dossary, a UNC junior, has been concerned about her father, who emigrated to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia.
Dossary was walking into Venable Hall on the morning of Sept. 11 when a classmate told her two planes flew into the World Trade Center towers. She did not need CNN to tell her that terrorists were behind it.
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
"It was like this gut instinct; I knew it was terrorists. ... Ever since the Gulf War, it's always on the back of my mind," she said.
When she called her father that day, he told her the same thing he had at the beginning of the Gulf War: Don't worry. They can't hurt me. I'm an American citizen.
But Dossary does worry, and she says the terrorist attacks have changed her family's life. Her father, an electrical engineer who emigrated to the United States in the mid-1960s, lost a job in July 2001 and has been unable to get another in his field since Sept. 11, something Dossary blames on prejudice.
"My father's career just plummeted," she said. "No one was calling him, and I think that had to do with him being Saudi Arabian."
Dossary's father now teaches AP statistics in a Mecklenburg County high school, forcing the family to move from their home in Pinehurst.
Dossary said fear of prejudice since the attacks has made her less willing to share her father's Saudi Arabian background.
"My dad came over from Saudi Arabia during college. I used to love telling that story. Now I'm not so quick to tell it," she said, adding that her stepmother suggested she not spread the fact that her father is from the Middle East. "I just don't feel that excitement or pride telling about it anymore."
For Dossary, these feelings are reminiscent of the way she felt during the Gulf War when her middle school classmates would ask her if her dad was going to bomb their school. "I think they got nervous being around me."
But unlike the Gulf War, Dossary said the Sept. 11 attacks have shattered her personal sense of safety.
"I still feel today like this world is coming to an end," she said. "Things seem to get progressively violent over there. ... It's not ending, it's escalating."
She said she finds that even though the United States has come together in patriotism, that unity is vulnerable to fear and the feeling that "you just can't trust anybody."
Today she plans to go to the University convocation and call her father, brothers and sisters because family has become more important to her since the attacks.
Abroad
It had to be a sick joke.
That was Kindl Shinn's first reaction when a German man, after hearing her American accent, approached her and a friend in Berlin on Sept. 11 and told her the World Trade Center and Pentagon had been attacked by terrorists.
"It just seemed preposterous to us," said Shinn, a UNC senior who was studying abroad in Berlin, Germany, last fall. She and her friend did not believe the news until later that day when a saleswoman in a shop saw their American credit cards and told them how sorry she was.
"I dropped all the clothes I'd been about to buy and ran to the nearest television," Shinn said.
That night, the study abroad officials told all the American students to pack their bags and prepare to fly home, only to later find out all of the flights had been canceled. Shinn said that was when she grasped the seriousness of the situation.
On Sept. 12, Berlin held a memorial service at the city's Brandenburg Gate. A crowd of 200,000 had gathered, making it impossible to see the stage by the time Shinn and her friends arrived. They all started speaking in English, complaining about being late.
"Then this German woman realized we were American. She turned to her friend and told her we were American," Shinn said. The woman started a domino effect. "The crowd just parted, like the Red Sea, and started pushing us slowly forward."
Shinn and her friends found themselves at the front of the crowd, holding U.S. flags and trinkets that people had handed them as they went by. Then, Shinn said, the crowd sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" and recited the Lord's Prayer in English.
"We were already crying. You just felt so connected to everyone there," she said.
Despite what happened in Berlin, Shinn said she felt removed from the American experience because she was abroad. She returned to the United States in December not having seen pictures of the burning towers, images that were already imbedded in other American's minds. She said she plans to spend the one-year anniversary connecting with the emotions she missed last year. Shinn said a lot of the stories and footage that likely will be shown on Sept. 11 are stuff she's never seen.
"Because I was kind of removed from it, I think it will be a different day because it will be very fresh for me."
Chapel Hill
UNC senior Michelle Cash was running late for her 9:30 a.m. class Sept. 11.
She ran out her front door with no thought of turning on the television. And after her class, she went straight to work at Oasis Cafe on Franklin Street.
When she walked in the door of the eatery, she noticed that talk radio, not music, was playing over the sound system. She didn't think anything of it until her boss came up and told her how sorry he was. There had been a terrorist attack, and a plane flew into the Pentagon, he informed her.
Cash's father, a Navy captain and chaplain, is stationed at the Pentagon. After she heard the news, Cash said she ran out of Oasis and didn't stop until she reached her apartment, a distance of about one mile.
"I turned on the TV immediately, just watching all the madness," she said. The next three hours were a blurred frenzy, as she kept dialing and redialing her father's cell phone, getting his voicemail each time. "I was just freaking out more than anything. I didn't know how to deal with it."
Cash's mother finally called at about 3 p.m. -- more than five hours after the attack on the Pentagon -- telling her that her father was unharmed. He survived the attack and spent the day carrying dead bodies out and praying with the survivors. "It was very frightening for him," Cash said.
After Sept. 11 she spent a lot of time traveling between North Carolina and Washington, D.C., wanting to see her family as much as possible.
Cash said she has been going home more often and is glad her mother, who was living in Rhode Island last year on Sept. 11, has moved to Washington so her family is close and together again.
"It just puts a reality check on how precious your family is to you," she said. "You realize people pass away because of illness or in car wrecks, but you never think an act of terror is going to occur and your dad is going to be there."
Cash said she'd like to spend today with her family in Washington, who are going to the ceremony at the Pentagon. But classes are keeping her at UNC, where she said she will probably attend a church service.
Abroad
UNC freshman Emily Vasquez said she plans to spend today watching and listening.
Vasquez hopes to absorb and understand some of the emotions of Americans surrounding the terrorist attacks because she feels disconnected from it.
The Charlotte native was taking a year off before starting college at UNC and was in Santander, Spain, on Sept. 11, 2001. She recalls spending the day watching the events unfold on television with her Spanish family and being shocked at footage of Palestinian and Arabian people celebrating. "The Spanish people I was staying with weren't surprised," she said.
They told her the same thing had happened after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. That was Vasquez's first indication that the European perspective was much different.
"It was more of an international political reaction than an emotional one," Vasquez said of the Europeans' perspective.
Her Spanish family explained that Spain had suffered attacks from separatist terrorists for years, including the bombing of a police building right next to their home. Most of the news reports she read in Spain focused on how the Sept. 11 attacks would affect the international community. Vasquez said in contrast, reports from the United States seemed highly emotional.
"They showed people really, really worked up. It was like little boys playing with GI Joes calling for war," she said. Vasquez, whose father is a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, was worried about the possibility of war. She said because the press coverage she saw focused more on the possibility of war than heart-wrenching stories about victims, she felt emotionally distanced from the event. "I was angered at Bush and other politicians for saying, 'We will fight. They will pay,'" she said.
When she returned to the United States in late December, Vasquez was shocked by the surge in patriotism.
"I was surprised to see flags everywhere. The rise in patriotism was incredible," she said.
Even after her father was deployed to Afghanistan in March, Vasquez was influenced by her experience in Spain and did not feel the emotions swirling around most Americans -- anger and fear.
"I don't feel the personal fear," she said. "I feel like we have serious international relations issues to deal with. We need to take the emotion down and deal with the issues.
"I'm not heartless. I realize what was lost."
Although she understands many Americans might find her situation hard to comprehend, she's hoping that today she will understand the emotional climate in the United States.
"I'll just be listening to hear what it was like."
Abroad
UNC senior Carolyn Vance has had terrorism hit close to home more than once since the Sept. 11 attacks.
She was studying abroad in Lyon, France, on Sept. 11 and later saw footage of residents in her largely Arab neighborhood celebrating the attacks.
"I felt really threatened and didn't want to leave the house and travel," Vance said of being abroad. "I really thought it was going to be a much more light-hearted, fun experience."
Vance's fears were fueled by two other experiences. When she visited Paris on New Year's Eve, all the festivities were canceled because an attack was feared. Over Spring Break, she visited a synagogue in Tunisia that a week later was attacked by al-Qaida terrorists. Eleven German tourists were killed when a terrorist drove a bus into the temple.
"I remember feeling extremely terrified of going out in public as an American," Vance said. "All the people at UNC and my parents were saying I shouldn't act American, I should take on a new identity."
Vance said she was terrified to attend a reception for Americans in Lyon town hall.
"All I could think is they want to get us all there and bomb us," she said. She said the reception was peaceful.
Vance, who spent the spring semester in Madrid, Spain, said it was a relief to return to the U.S.
"I think the worse part about being abroad is thinking something might happen to me and I'll never see my family or friends again," she said. Vance said she's planning to make more trips home to visit her family in Hobart, N.Y. Today she plans to go to the vigil at University Presbyterian Church.
By Stephanie M. Horvath, Senior Writer
